Escudo

It's strange to me that with all of the fine tobacco mentioned here we never hear much about good ol' Escudo. I've been smoking it on and off since I began about twelve years ago. It's among the most reviewed and highest recommened blends on tobaccoreviews.com. For me it's always been THE benchmark VA/perique Flake on the market.

It's importer and blender have changed over the years from Cope's to Gallagher, to A.C. Petersen and now Stokkebye I believe. Has anyone noticed any signifigant change to the blend through out the years? I assume that they no longer use St. James perique (right?). I would be cuious to know what they use now instead?...

Have you ever tried the blend? Did you like it?....

I smoke it pretty regularly and love it. I've only tried the older stuff a few times and never enough to really know it but the newer stuff is just fine with me.

I've been smoking the crap out of this stuff since I first discovered it. I can't manage to keep enough of it around and always seem to be running low. I have only ever had the current incarnation, but I'm thinking about trying to find some older stuff just to compare. Of course the older stuff would have a bit more age on it, so it wouldn't be a direct comparison, but probably a worthwhile venture anyway I would imagine.

As a side note, for some reason my wife LOVES the room note of Esucdo more so than just about any other blend. Much more than even the various aros I have tried just for something to smoke around her . Can't say I blame her...I would have a bowl of Escudo burning all day long if I could.

Never realized Stokkebye now has a hand in it. My newer tins indicate that now that I look at them.

I have more tins of Escudo than any other blend. I haven't smoked the newer version. The tins are on my shelf .

Escudo is a fine blend.. I have a tin somewhere. I used to smoke a lot of it but I've found what to me is better.

The real reason I'm posting though is to enquire as to why you believe its not real Perique?

The myth that there is no more perique or that is so rare as to be nonexistant is just not true..yet it keeps floating around.. I assure you that you can go down to St James and look around, it is alive and kicking....

Here's the most recent article I googled up.

http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/put-that-in-your-pipe/the-mystique-of-perique/

Its been a few years since I've been down there but last time I was down in Port Fourchon I 'accidently' made a wrong turn and somehow or another ended up in the neighborhood (stay on hwy 1, swing back on on 70, hang a right on 18) its alive!!!!

I have a bunch of tins stashed. Have not smoked any in quite some time.

I have a few tins 5-6 yo, really a lite blend for me, Ken

A benchmark Va/Per for sure! It's one of my top 2 or 3 smokes at the moment. There was a thread over on the Puff forums about the change to PS and no one there seemed to be able to tell a difference with the latest incarnation.

Who still uses the real deal St. James Perique seems to be such a mystery. From what I gather, most blenders use a milder version called Arcadian perique or green river burley which is supposedly much less potent than the old time 100% perique. I would love to get a list of all the blends, if there are any, that have the real mccoy style perique in them.

Never tried it. Now I will!
Ed

Yes, Escudo is one of my favorites, possibly my top favorite vaper blend. I've done several panic buys of Escudo, as every so often there were rumors of it being discontinued. By the end of the 90s I had accumulated a couple hundred tins of it, which I've been smoking since. Last time I checked I still had 60 or 70 of them. I probably should get more...

I'm only familiar with the present production, I got on the Escudo wagon late, trying it after "discovering" PS Bullseye flake. It's one of my favorites.

All the worry about perique availability is an ongoing saga,,,with all the tobaccos out there listing perique in their blends, one has to wonder if there really is an issue.

Would someone please call mark down at L A Posche down in St James parish Looziannie and tell him to go back to NC.. The mans been down there for 5 years with the delusion that he is farming 60-80 acres of perique... Its clear he's delusional, I read on a pipe board that there isn't any perique.

It's long been a benchmark VaPer to me. I couldn't wait any longer and finally popped a tin that I've been cellaring for just over one year. It smoked even better than I remembered. I'm smoking some of it right now, coincidentally enough, in an Ardor Urano rusticated poker (longstemmed). I've got a dozen of the tins still aging, but at the rate that I would prefer to smoke this great baccy I wonder how long I'll be able to keep to that purpose of long time aging. Carpe Diem?

RE the availability/demise/extinction of perique: I took a class of students on an extended field studies a while back and spent a day and a night in St. James Parrish, and visited what was at that time (I believe?) the only farm actively growing perique left (this is in the late 90s). Obviously, as numerous articles and the news has shown, it's on a rebound and seems to be thriving and growing in acreage. But what the old man lamented to me than and I've heard rumors of since, is that you can age/ferment other types of tobacco to become almost perique like in its quality. And with it only represents a small percentage of a VaPer, many might not know the difference. This may be the concern mentioned earlier in this thread, is it "real" St. James perique or an imitation?

Natch (not the real Natch, but a cheap, imitation Natch)

Green River Natch?


It doesn't help when blenders use Acadian Perique as a descriptor and people don't know the definition of Acadian Perique is.
"Kentucky Green River Burley MIXED with the St. James tobacco" From that they get that it isn't perique, that it is somehow "Just Green River Burley"...

Percy sells his entire crop to cig makers, LA Poche sells most of their crop to pipe blenders...
Right now there are a handful of farms growing genuine real life honest to god perique.. Ryan gets about 30,000 lbs of it... Thats a lot of perique leaf.. with 100% increase this year (60,000) and a 100% increase next year (120,000 or 90,000 depending on the math).. I don't think perique will be dead anytime soon.

As to which companys use 100% real perique in their blends? Any of them that have perique in the blend..

If it says Perique its perique.. Either Acadian (what the difference between the processor adding tobacco or the blender adding tobacco? ) or St James.. (if its St James the blender does the same thing Poche does when they add ANYTHING to the tobacco, it is no longer 100% Perique even though the perique in it is 100% real perique.)

puros_bran wrote:

Green River Natch?


It doesn't help when blenders use Acadian Perique as a descriptor and people don't know the definition of Acadian Perique is.
"Kentucky Green River Burley MIXED with the St. James tobacco" From that they get that it isn't perique, that it is somehow "Just Green River Burley"...

Percy sells his entire crop to cig makers, LA Poche sells most of their crop to pipe blenders...
Right now there are a handful of farms growing genuine real life honest to god perique.. Ryan gets about 30,000 lbs of it... Thats a lot of perique leaf.. with 100% increase this year (60,000) and a 100% increase next year (120,000 or 90,000 depending on the math).. I don't think perique will be dead anytime soon.

As to which companys use 100% perique in their blends? Any of them that have perique in the blend..

If it says Perique its perique.. Either Acadian (what the difference between the processor adding tobacco or the blender adding tobacco? ) or St James.. (if its St James the blender does the same thing Poche does when they add ANYTHING to the tobacco, it is no longer 100% Perique even though the perique in it is 100% real perique.)

Exactly!!!!!!!!

I cellared two tins about 6 months ago,,,,,guess I'll be popping one open now.

Escudo is...

Delightful, spicy, mysterious, laced with hints of dried fruits and toasted nuts, delicious, earthy, tobacco-y, subtle, yummy, and ridiculously satisfying.

Escudo Inquiry Regarding The Nature of Reality #3756 - B:

This tobacco is so bloody incredible that the ancient Greeks postulated that Escudo was the binding agent between molecular particles, thereby making carbon based life forms, as well as physical reality itself, possible. Of course, they were erroneous, but, I ask ye Brothers of the pipe, were they really that far off the mark?



(In case anyone was wondering, I very much enjoy Escudo and regard it highly... just in case this wasn't made crystal clear in the digressionary ramble above.)

puros_bran wrote:

Escudo is a fine blend.. I have a tin somewhere. I used to smoke a lot of it but I've found what to me is better.

The real reason I'm posting though is to enquire as to why you believe its not real Perique?

The myth that there is no more perique or that is so rare as to be nonexistant is just not true..yet it keeps floating around.. I assure you that you can go down to St James and look around, it is alive and kicking....

Here's the most recent article I googled up.

http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/put-that-in-your-pipe/the-mystique-of-perique/

Its been a few years since I've been down there but last time I was down in Port Fourchon I 'accidently' made a wrong turn and somehow or another ended up in the neighborhood (stay on hwy 1, swing back on on 70, hang a right on 18) its alive!!!!

I dunno Bran. Ignorance? I just assumed that most of the real stuff and the farms who grew it were wiped out in Katrina? I guess this isn't the case. This proves the theory that Dock doesn't actually know everything there is to know about tobacco.

I had heard sometime ago from a blender that he was unable to get the real stuff and was using some form of artificial perique. Not sure what this was all about. Anyway, I stand corrected

I'm a new Escudo fan. Since Virginias used to burn the blankety blank out of my tongue I never tried it. Gave it a shot a few weeks ago due to the great reviews I've read. I just ordered three more tins and I'm thinking I should have ordered more.

I had a couple tins in the cellar although had never tried any yet. Popped one open an hour or so... I say it's good stuff.

Escudo was the first tobacco that I bought with the goal of accumulating 5000 g (100 tins). Having JR about 45 minutes away really helped. I smoked a 5 y/o tin this winter and was disappointed. I keep buying 2 or 3 tins and smoking them first, thus elongating the age of my stash. If 5 years isn't enough age, maybe 10 will be. Right now I have ~40 tins with 5 or more years of age.

alfredo_buscatti wrote:

Escudo was the first tobacco that I bought with the goal of accumulating 5000 g (100 tins). Having JR about 45 minutes away really helped. I smoked a 5 y/o tin this winter and was disappointed. I keep buying 2 or 3 tins and smoking them first, thus elongating the age of my stash. If 5 years isn't enough age, maybe 10 will be. Right now I have ~40 tins with 5 or more years of age.

I am genuinely asking this, not offering sage words of wisdom... is it possible that because they are aging in the vacuum sealed tins they are not taking on the enhanced flavor characteristics? Would you get better result in Ball jars where there is a little O2 in the jar? I think it was Greg Pease thoughts on aging tobaccos where I got the idea.

I have a nearly full Kerr mason jar filled with Escudo. The stuff is wonderful.

Everything I've read says that tins are the best, although in different ways the 2 5 y/o Escudo tins were disappointing.

What you want to do in aging is to deplete the oxygen supply as fast as possible as the aerobic phase of fermentation adds little to aging's benefits. The anaerobic phase is where aging's magic occurs.